Swansea Astronomical Society Blog

Saturday, December 17, 2011

Composite image to show the relative sizes of the Moon and the Orion Nebula

Last night the image of the Moon was captured with an f/5, 80mm refractor and the image of the Orion Nebula was captured with an f/5.5 apochromatic refractor. The lunar image was scaled to the correct size and superimposed on the Orion image. The Moon was actually in Sextans below Leo when the images were captured.

Click on the image to get a larger view.It is often hard to judge the size of deep sky objects in the sky when they are essentially invisible and have to be looked at through telescopes or binoculars. This image gives an indication of the scale of the brighter parts of the Orion nebula, which actually extends further than revealed in this image. The running man reflection nebula can be seen at the top of the image.